


What Spring Does to the Cherry Trees

by Doodsxd



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Clueless Harry, Light Angst, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Poetry, Post-War, Recovery, Redemption, Romantic Draco, War Aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8878645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doodsxd/pseuds/Doodsxd
Summary: The end of summer didn't care about what they had lived. The beginning of autumn didn't care that they had survived. Time never did.





	1. Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Listen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4107676) by [especiallythezefronposter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/especiallythezefronposter/pseuds/especiallythezefronposter). 



> Hello,
> 
> So, this work may be a little childish. Just a fair warning. I lost myself there and couldn't get it together anymore, but I was really needing it, and hopefully someone is too. So, there. 
> 
> I'm awful with summaries and this work is not finished yet. I'll try to keep up with it as I can. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it.

The warm breeze unhurriedly moved the fluffy white clouds from east to west, once more uncovering the white skies to show the warm blue that only September could afford to have, especially on that part of Scotland. Sun rays illuminated Hogwarts almost harshly from outside, violently forcing the happy light through the eyes of the students, violating their grief.

The end of summer didn't care about what they had lived. The beginning of autumn didn't care that they had survived. Time never did.

From first years to seventh, smiles and laughter spread, starting like droplets of water rippling through a peaceful surface, from the most resilient, or from those who the war didn't reach.

Eighth years, however, - well, that was quite a different story, as it should. All of them had blood on their hands, by accident, by proxy, by countless reasons that, in the end, didn't matter at all.

 A miasma surrounded them every time their eyes went dull and unmovable, lost in the horrors trapped inside their heads. It was not selective, as well, wrapping itself snugly around Gryffindors, Slytherins, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws. It was on the way that Dino Thomas' clutched Finnigan's forearm silently when a younger student dropped a book on the floor, startling him. It was on the way McGonagal did not bait an eyelash when Luna Lovegood dismissed her House's table to glue the side of her body to Neville Longbottom's, as if there was a kind of cold that clothes and warming charms could not chase away.

It was on the way that candles were now spelled away from Draco Malfoy, lest he violent expelled anything, solid or liquid, which was currently residing inside his stomach. 

Despite the outcome every single one of them, by themselves, deserved, for choosing the path they did, the aftermath of war was not easy to anyone.

 

***

 

September 16th. The rain still refused to come, no matter how they wished for it, for the droplets would cry what their dried eyes could not anymore.

Pansy Parkinson walked quickly, parchment creased inside her hand, shoulders set with tension. Right behind her, slower, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley discussed Quidditch, just to kill the silence, for once, Hermione Granger's ears lulled by their voices, giving her a sliver of a sense of security. Friends surrounded her. She was OK.

"But the Holyhead Harpies lost their chaser to the Cannons! We all know the whole cup will change after that!" The redhead argued, trying to make his own voice heated enough.

"Ron, it's impossible for the Cannons to make that many points, no matter how good their chaser is." Harry gave his counterpoint. "They'll lose. This cup is the Tornado's, there's no doubt about that anywhere but inside your thick head."

Ron huffed. "Let's see how thick my head is when I win the Hogsmeade Quidditch pool this weeken-" He started, but a screech stopped him to a halt.

"Are you goading, Weasley? I'm sure your family won enough from the spoils of war that you can place bets on stupidities like Quidditch, but that makes me wonder _why_ do you still wear those ridiculous second-handed traps!" The Slytherin ahead of them was now staring at them. Everyone stopped.

"What-?" The boy frowned, staying in place by a mere touch from Hermione's hand on his. He searched for whatever was that, that his friend saw, having learned a long time ago not to dismiss her signs.

Pansy wasn't having it, however, throat open and eyes ablaze, furious. "Fuck you, Weasley! Fuck you and your newfound money! You go around spending that like water, a money that never belonged to the likes of you!" Her whole body shook as she stepped forward, closer to them. "What, did you buy your cow of a mother some diamond rings with the post-war fund too?" Another step, parchment crackling against her palm the only sound beyond her harsh breathing. "You should buy her zirconia, she'll never know the difference."

They kept silent, waiting the inevitable. Like watching a dam break from underneath it, ready to be washed away by the water.

"Parkinson," Harry tried, appeasing, and flinched at her voice.

"Don't say my name! Don't you ever, _ever_ say my name again!" She screamed, voice already showing signs of failing, brown eyes completely shut. "You ruined everything! You lot, you think you're so good but you don't see _half_ of it, you don't-" The girl tried to draw a breath, but she couldn't.  Her chest and diaphragm fought each other, and it was very clear that she was hyperventilating in the midst of a panic attack, something they knew intimately.

Hermione let her bag fall on the floor and walked forward, pulling the other girl to a strong-armed hug. Pansy fought at first, long nails digging on the Gryffindor’s waist through the thin fabric of her shirt, but that did not stop the other girl from hugging her even harder.

Eventually, Pansy's body sagged forward, leaning on Hermione, who held her strong through the dry sobs choking on her throat, just before the first tear dropped. Dam open, her knees failed and she cried heavily against her shoulder, parchment finally falling from her hands on the floor.

Both girls tilted sideways toward the wall, supported by it while they slid down to sit on the floor. Ron and Harry sat with them, Harry beside Hermione, Ron beside Parkinson, dismissing every look thrown their way with an ugly scorn that promised a stinging hex on the first imbecile that decided to make a comment.

Slowly, Pansy regained her breath, drying her eyes on her hands. Harry offered her a paper tissue, something he learned to carry with him these days, and she dried her nose with a thankful look his way.

The girl reached for the forgotten piece of parchment laying in the middle of the corridor, scooting back to the cozy barrier they built with their bodies around her. With a wet sniff, she looked at it.

"It's my sister," She said, voice raspy. "We weren't even-" Pansy stopped, but they held space. "We weren't even in the enemy side for Death Eaters. We stayed as neutral as we could for as long as we could but-"

Hermione offered her hand and took the parchment, reading it while the other girl gathered her words again, passing it to Harry when she finished. They did not need a bunch of words to tell them what happened, however. It was quite obvious by the agony batting its wings inside Parkinson.

"She was in France, but they found her as a way to press my family into joining the Dark Lord. She had a fiancé, and she was three months pregnant. They caught her, and they-... they did an abortion on her, so they could... _use_ her."

A shudder passed through Hermione, who could feel that on her own skin.

"French aurors found her, but they weren't sure how long they were with her. They even b-branded her. It's like; it's one thing to choose to have the fucking dark mark on your arm, even if you were coerced because of your parent's stupidity, but to be _branded?_ Like-like cattle?" She sniffed again, obviously talking about Malfoy.

"She was under a stasis spell until they could gather enough resources to work on her, and they _did_ , they did everything they could, but-" Tears were back in her eyes. "They cursed her, so she would get worse every time someone tried to treat the tearing in her-" Slytherin or not, she choked another sob and Granger rubbed her back soothingly.

"She died." The words were heavy. "And we were trying to find a way to get to France, or to get her body here for us to bury, but we have no money anymore, and we can't leave the country, and every person I know has empty vaults on Gringots because of that wretched fund, and the Ministry refused to help because we were affiliated to-" Pansy sniffed again. "Her fiancé is in a mental health facility and can't do anything. We won't even know where she's buried. We won't even know-" She broke on sobbing again, face hidden on her hands.

They gave her a moment to breathe. Ron was the first to speak.

"Fred had a store. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes." He huffed a short chuckle. "He and George were twins, but I never saw twins like that. I don't say it just because they're my brothers. I mean, you remember the whole Umbridge debacle during N.O.M.'s, don't you?" He asked, facing her, and she nodded. "They were something else. I always wanted to be like them, even now. And when he died, we-" He stopped, giving his emotions time.

"We didn't know what to do. My mom stood strong while we cried, but she was never the same cheerful, class-less woman we knew." He smiled as Parkinson chuckled lightly. "And then this money was in our accounts. _For extraordinary services rendered to the wizarding world_ , the note from the Ministry said, and we..." Ron sighed. "We didn't want it. We tried to make George invest it in the store, but he didn't want anything to do with that either."

"I guess what I'm saying is: you can have it." He said and her face transformed into a shocked, hopeful mess. "I know, it's weird, and looks like charity, but I don't care. The Weasley family is distantly tied to the Blacks and the Prewetts, and we all have a whole cemetery just for us. It's all paid for. And I knew that money was lying around for a reason. Now I know what reason was that." Ron smiled at her, kindly.

"I can't- I can't possibly-" She stammered, but the redhead shook his head.

"The money will be in your account by tomorrow morning." He declared firmly. "What you do with it is entirely up to you." He looked at Harry. "We learned the hard way that it doesn't really matter which house or side we belonged to. We are all survivors, and I guess we should help each other to, well-, survive." He shrugged.

Pansy did not hug him. She did not cry, she did not smile. That was not the point. But she sat there with them, shoulders relaxed, suffering diminished by someone's generosity.

Some minutes later, Hermione gasped, frowning, and captured the other's attention. She was looking at the wall in front of them, which was now stained by black ink, which wasn't there a moment before.

"What's-?" Harry, wary as he should be, since the last time those walls were painted, they were painted in blood by Ginny Weasley, controlled by young Voldemort, and a Basilisk was wondering by the pipes of the castle, motioned to stand defensively, wand drawn.

"It's a poem." Hermione said with a curious expression. "I know it. It's by Mary Elizabeth Frye. I know it because when I was studying feminism it popped out as a poem wrongly credited to a man."

Pansy stood up, speechless, and tentatively touched the wall, lower lip trembling. Her expression, however, was not one of misery and desperation anymore, but something bittersweet, between tears and a genuine, grateful smile.

 

_Do not stand at my grave and weep_

_I am not there. I do not sleep._

_I am a thousand winds that blow._

_I am the diamond glints on snow._

_I am the sunlight on ripened grain._

_I am the gentle autumn rain._

_When you awaken in the morning's hush_

_I am the swift uplifting rush_

_Of quiet birds in circled flight._

_I am the soft stars that shine at night._

_Do not stand at my grave and cry;_

_I am not there. I did not die._

 

The Gryffindors stood a step behind her, and Ron reached a hand to her shoulder, which the girl covered with hers.

Behind them, through the windows, rain started to fall. 


	2. Caged Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pain didn't scare him anymore. He faced and made peace with the darkest corners of himself, all of his demons helping him live instead of urging him to give up to Death's arms. He did what he had to do, what he identified as right, no matter the costs. The trust and legacy he gathered for himself with that, unknowingly even, still surprised him sometimes.

October 31th arrived with orange and red on its heels. Every leaf was falling, painting Hogwart's grounds warm. Harry Potter watched, quietly, from the Astronomy Tower, as every color around him turned to the color of his mother's hair.

Earlier that day, an owl arrived to him. Apparently, Hagrid saw fit to go visit the Dursley's one more time and demand that they sent everything that was Harry's or his parent's to him. The boy didn't want to think of his aunt and uncle's faces when the half-giant strolled inside their house, barking orders at them about a nephew they despised.

He didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the thought.

His story with the part of his family he knew was and would ever be a part of him. He knew that it didn't matter how much love he received from the Weasley's or anyone, really; it didn't matter that his plate was full every day, or that he had a warm, comfortable bed to sleep on every night.

Crying alone in the dark inside a cupboard took a toll on him. The rude words, the name-calling, the second-handed clothes, being treated like an unwanted servant - it was all ingrained into his very being, and it would never leave him. It was why he didn't take Malfoy's hand on that first year. It was why he would always side with the underdog, those who needed any help he could provide.

It was, in great part, what made him Harry Potter. Pain didn't scare him anymore. He faced and made peace with the darkest corners of himself, all of his demons helping him live instead of urging him to give up to Death's arms. He did what he had to do, what he identified as right, no matter the costs. The trust and legacy he gathered for himself with that, unknowingly even, still surprised him sometimes.

None of that mattered, because it was October, 31. He knew there would never be a year in his whole life when that day wouldn't hurt, when that day wouldn't hunt him and lead him to think about all the what if's, all the things that no matter how much he wished, couldn't be.

Ever since he found his parent's graves on Deathly Hallows, that date was carved as deeply in his mind as it was on their tombstone. Buried together. Love in life and after. So, he decided to take a day. One day, once a year, to mourn for their deaths; to sit quietly with the everlasting loss and think about them, honor them however he could.

He had already put flowers on their tombstones, leaving the grounds with McGonagal's authorization; he already flew around on his broom and watched his father's trophy in the trophy room; he had even stared at every picture he ever found of them for a lengthy period of time. He wished the Erised Mirror was still inside the castle so he could see them again - his main desire might not be having them around anymore, after all those years, but on that very day, he was sure he would see their faces reflected right behind him.

Harry thought about trying to find the resurrection stone, but then talked himself out of it. Dumbledor had been right all along, as was the Three Brother's Tale - the dead had to stay dead, no matter how unfair it was with the living. They made their way, and should be able to enjoy their rest in peace.

So, there he was. Astronomy Tower, watching the sun paint the sky, too, in shades of orange and red. The blanket was soft in his hands, and he felt his heart thump heavily, tears threatening to make their way out of his eyes once again. Despair took him for a moment, because - because why? _Why_ did it have to be him? Orphan, with his whole life with a target on his back, the only one effectively trying to kill Voldemort because some stupid prophecy said it had to be him.

It wasn't fair. Sirius. Remus, Nymphadora. Dobby. Fred. Edwiges. The list of who he lost was endless. His chest heaved, and he was about to cry his eyeballs out when he saw it. Just a flicker in the corner of his eye, but it caught his attention.

Words were forming on the wall, and he stopped to read them, distracted from his depressing thoughts.

 

_The free birds leaps_

_on the back of the wind_

_and floats downstream_

_til the current ends_

_and dips his wings_

_in he orange sun rays_

_and dares to claim the sky._

 

He stood up to touch the ink, which seemed to be temporary, seeing that he passed through the same corridor where the poem for Pansy was, and there was nothing there anymore. Another flick, and a wall on the corridor started to form words, the ink on the one in front of him vanishing slowly, as if it was transferring to the next wall, calling him to it.

He walked there, absorbing the new words spread on the stone, his heart beating strongly inside his chest.

 

_But a bird that stalks_

_down his narrow cage_

_can seldom see through_

_his bars of rage_

_his wings are clipped and_

_his feet are tied_

_so he opens his throat to sing._

Harry barely had time to stop reading that before another set of words formed by the end of the hallway, guiding him away from the Astronomy Tower. He didn't think anything of it, however, following through it.

 

_The caged bird sings_

_with fearful trill_

_of the things unknown_

_but longed for still_

_and his tune is heard_

_on the distant hill_

_for the caged bird_

_sings of freedom_

The next verse was at the bottom of the stairs, and Harry had to move quickly to read it before it faded.

 

_The free bird thinks of another breeze_

_and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees_

_and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn_

_and he names the sky his own._

 

He could see himself on that poem. He, the caged bird who sang, who imagined and wished and sought for freedom, for another reality, claiming that freedom and naming it his despite the rage and hatred all around him, from people who doubted him, from people who thought it was all his fault that Hogwarts or their families, or even England, became a target.

He had no idea who was on the distant hill hearing him, interpreting him so well despite never talking to him, but that person knew his deepest secrets like the back of their hand, apparently.

 

_But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams_

_his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream_

_his wings are clipped and his feet are tied_

_so he opens his throat to sing_

He thought of the dreams of his family. James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, Nymphadora, Dumbledor, Dobby, Snape. He thought of the night terrors he had since his feet touched Hogwarts for the first time, his scar burning, unavoidable. _A pig to the slaughter_ , Severus said. He died.

 

_The caged bird sings_

_with a fearful trill_

_of things unknown_

_but longed for still_

_and his tune is heard_

_on the distant hill_

_for the caged bird_

_sings of freedom_.

 

Without knowing it, he reached the doors. The autumnal breeze was slightly cold, but students were all around the terracotta grounds, having fun with soft mounds of leaves. Hermione was there, leaves all over her hair, laughing at something Luna said, Neville and Ron around her too. Then he saw Seamus and Dino sneaking around them, levitating leaves just above their heads.

His smile bloomed as they all made surprised faces as the leaves fell around them, and suddenly there was a war - but a fun one, for a change - of leaves spreading on the grounds. Ron saw him and started to wave in his direction, and Harry laughed with himself, heading towards them, just before spelling his blanket back to the Gryffindor Tower.

There was another war to win. This one, however, was of his choosing.

Nearby, a nightingale sung.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fanfic title comes from a poem by Pablo Neruda, "Every Day You Play." The one from this chapter is from Mary Angelou, "Caged Bird".


	3. Someone Asked Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> November came and, with it, the screams from Hermione and Ron.

November came and, with it, the screams from Hermione and Ron.

As usual, they were fighting over stupid things, nerves high, one fight melding with the other like a snowball catching more and more snowflakes into its size as it moved.

After two weeks of that, Harry started dodging them both. He woke up earlier, ate earlier with Luna and Neville, and headed alone to his classes. Sometimes, however, he still bumped with one of them, and had to spend endless, precious minutes listening to one or the other say the craziest, nastiest things about the other.

Sometimes, like today, they arrived at the Great Hall yelling their lungs out, and there was nothing he could do but to duck his head and hope they wouldn't recognize the bird's nest that was his hair.

"Harry! Tell your stupid friend that I _do not_ have to lend him my assignments so he can _copy me_!" She screamed, and so much for not being spotted.

"Harry, tell your arrogant know-it-all _stubborn_ friend that I don't want to _copy_ her work, I just want _inspiration_ to do my own!" Ron spat right back, the tips of his ears red with anger.

" _Inspiration_ my ass! You always copied me in Hogwarts! You never did a lesson in you whole _life,_ for all I know!"

The redheaded growled. "We fought side by side on a _war_ and you think I can't write eighty inches on the Patronus charm?" He said indignantly. "Who do you think you are?"

" _I'm the person who you've been getting your lessons from since day one!"_ She fumed, hair growing strangely bigger with her stress. "And you fought _half a war_ with me and Harry, if you don't remember!"

"They really love each other, don't they?" Luna poked Harry on the ribs softly, smiling.

Harry sighed, tuning out of the noise around them. "Tell me about it." He grumbled.

"Oh, look!" Luna pointed to the Hall's enchanted ceiling, which was now painting words with the enchanted clouds that should be mimicking the sky outside.

The noise ceased from every table as people read them, capturing the quarrelling couple's attention.

 

_Someone asked me what home was and all I could think of were the stars on the tip of your tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your fingers, the ocean echoing inside your ribcage._

The words blew themselves with wind, and Harry saw with the corner of his eyes, his friends getting closer to each other as they read, hands brushing, twitching, fingers seeking one another.

He expected it, and yet, it was a bit embarrassing, if not relieving, to see Hermione and Ron look at each other lovingly once again. They didn't say anything, really - just leaned in and kissed each other, earning applauses from almost the whole room, not to mention teasing whistles that came even from the Slytherin table.

"What a shame," Luna said when the noise died down to the usual buzz of morning conversation. "It didn't say the author's name."

They looked up for a moment, as the clouds spelled _E. E. Cummings._

The blond girl just smiled and pecked Neville's cheek, making him blush and duck his head, grinning stupidly.

Harry looked around, but couldn't see anything different around him, everyone talking and eating as they normally would.

He took a note to search for that poem later, just so he wouldn't forget it.

 


	4. Soul May Set In Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time in Hogwarts went on, and so did the poems.

Time in Hogwarts went on, and so did the poems.

Professor Trelawney earned herself a verse of the From the Old Astronomer by Sarah Williams at the end of her class, which almost made her cry - and made Harry think inevitably about Dumbledor.

 

_Though my soul may set in darkness,_

_it will rise in perfect light;_

_I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night._

McGonagal had been snappy the whole day, patience wearing thin as first-years decided to try and make the Marauders look like sweet little angels, and the wall behind her desk was covered by Anne Sexton, that made her calmer and a bit weepy for the rest of the day. Harry suspected, as did everyone, that it was about Dumbledor as well.

_And what of the dead? They lie without shoes_

_in the stone boats. They are more like stone_

_than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse_

_to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone._

And suddenly, people were interested in poetry. The miasma slowly dissipated as words from other people, dead people's minds, mouths and fingers, expressed what they didn't dare to say. Words, magic words, healing words, giving flow and form to feelings that needed out, that needed release.

And Harry walked around the castle tasting coconuts and mango all the way as Neruda followed him, step by step, unavoidable and irrevocable.

 

_I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,_

_in secret, between the shadow and the soul._

"Someone is in love with you," Luna said with an airy smile, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Harry touched the empty wall, heart thumping louder inside his ribcage. Not faster, but stronger, like waves crashing on a beach.

"Are you going to search for them?" She insisted, watching him closely. She was more perceptive than she let on. "Seems like they're worth it. Those verses did magic that even magic couldn't do around this castle."

"I know," He breathed, head leaning on the stone, eyes closed. "But how?"

She shrugged. "Find someone who likes poetry, and who owns a blue sweater." The girl suggested.

Harry opened his eyes. 

 

***

 

He woke up to verses again, walking slowly to savor the words. Those smelled like red roses and smoke, and he never wanted to scent anything else ever again.

McGonagal enjoyed the poems very much, but she had a duty as headmistress, since it was joining more and more couples on sweet kisses, that led to public snogging, that led to things that shouldn't be done out in the open. They were teenagers, of course, but that didn't mean she would give up on trying to shape them into decent human beings.

_Lately I've been thinking about who I want to love, and how I want to love, and why I want to love the way I love, and what I need to learn to love that way, and how I need to become to become the kind of love I want to be._

She and Flitwick were not able to identify the magical signature of the spell done to the walls, or if it was a malfunction from the castle's magic, or even if it was _tempering_ with it, which could be dangerous. The only thing they found was that the poems were most likely connected to some kind of personal collection from the spell caster, and that they were supposed to respond to the person's mood, emotions, feelings and thoughts - except for Harry's. 

_And when I break it al down, when I whittle it into a single breath, it essentially comes out like this: before I die, I want to be somebody's favorite hiding place, the place they an put everything they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe._

"For you, it's a serenade, Mr. Potter." Flitwick explained, illuminating the spell that tied his presence to those passionate verses. It was like a red wire, and he wondered if it had something to do with the Japanese red string of fate. "This person most likely needed an outlet for their own feelings for you, and used this as a way of expressing them."

"Can we trace them to it, like this?" McGonagal asked the professor, interested.

"I can try." Flitwick shrugged.

"Then do it." She ordered and left them alone, the student still feeling goosebumps from the last poem. 

"I know the headmistress wants to know who it is first thing, my boy," He advised, looking straight at Harry. "But I'll warn you first, instead. Nothing more fair." He shrugged his small shoulders.

"Thank you, professor." He said with a fleeting smile, and remembered Dumbledor's words: _Hogwarts will always help those who deserve it_.

 

_I will keep it safe._

 

He went to the kitchen, and presented himself with a treacle tart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems are:
> 
> Sarah Williams - From the Old Astronomer (To HIs Pupil)
> 
> Anne Sexton - The Truth the Dead Know
> 
> Pablo Neruda - Sonnet XVII
> 
> Andrea Gibson - Lately I've been Thinking


	5. Repeat After Me... My Demons Don't Define Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the sixth incident with students of the eighth year, mostly regarding uncontrolled, emotional spikes of magic, McGonagall and Slughorn decided they needed an outlet.
> 
> It wasn't going well.

After the sixth incident with students of the eighth year, mostly regarding uncontrolled, emotional spikes of magic, McGonagall and Slughorn decided they needed an outlet.

It wasn't going well.

"I don't know what we're doing here." Finnigan said, looking around to the circle of eighth years and a couple of other students inside an empty classroom. Why the headmistress thought that group therapy would be a good idea was beyond Harry's imagination.

"We're supposed to be sharing." Hermione gave her input quietly, staring at some point in the middle of their circle. They had been silent for fifteen minutes after that.

"Yeah? So why don't you start?" Thomas turned his chair loudly to her, as angry and uncomfortable as everyone else.

Hermione just glared at him, crossing her arms over her chest protectively before turning her eyes back to the nothingness they were before.

"I was held captive at Malfoy Manor for a month." Luna's soft voice broke the silence, and Draco inhaled sharply before turning silent again. "It was nicer than I thought it would be. Mostly because of cousin Draco." The girl turned to the blonde boy, who had his eyes closed.

"Cousin?" Ron intervened, looking confused. "You're his cousin?"

"Twice removed, but yes. My mother was Abraxas Malfoy's daughter, but he cast her out of the family once she married my father." She explained breezily, as always.

"Luna," Malfoy's voice rasped the air warningly, but it was somewhat warm despite it.

"We are here to share." She insisted. "So, I will share. I think it's fair that people know that I wasn't tortured."

Harry frowned deeply. "What do you mean?" He asked, leaning forward. Maybe she was under one of her delusions again? "I was at the trials, Luna. Yaxley admitted to it."

"He never tortured me." She insisted. "She tortured someone who looked like me."

"But how?" Hermione was baffled. "That's not possible, unless-"

"Someone took Polyjuice to look like you." Harry breathed. "And they were tortured instead."

The Ravenclaw smiled. "By elimination process, I know it was Draco." She said with a shrug. "And I'm very glad, and grateful. For that and the food he and Narcissa left for me. My father was really worried when I got back home." She shifted. "I was going to speak at the trials, but they didn't let me, because it could mean they would be set free. Since Yaxley did use the Cruciatus curse, which I heard and saw, I figured it wouldn't make much of a difference." The girl shrugged.

Another few minutes of silence as they digested the information.

"I don't pity anyone," Neville broke the silence once again, voice clear and compassionate. "But what I lost, I lost long ago. And yeah, I do have some nightmares here and then, especially about the battle in Hogwarts. I don't think coming back was a bad thing, but-"

"I don't know why the fuck Luna is implying that Malfoy could be such a good guy." Ron interrupted, fuming with anger.

"Ron," Harry tried to appease him, but, of course, he never listened.

"No, let me say this. We, too, were captive on Malfoy Mansion, and it wasn't roses and rainbows, especially while his aunt tortured Hermione and we couldn't do anything-"

"Ron," Harry tried again, memories of black floors and daggers making his gut tight.

"He didn't say anything, he just stood there while Hermione screamed and screamed and then she stopped, she stopped and we had no idea if she-" He swallowed hard. "If she died. So fuck whatever Malfoy did for Luna, he doesn't deserve to be here, he almost destroyed Hogwarts completely, he almost killed all of us, he killed Goyle-"

"Ron, shut the fuck up!" Hermione yelled suddenly, looking very angry. "He didn't identify us, he gave Harry his wand with barely a fight, and Goyle, I'm sorry, but he was stupid. He did what he had to do to protect his family. It doesn't matter that his father and his aunt were crazy dumbasses." She talked, avoiding Malfoy's look, knowing he was thrumming inside his own skin.

"We all made mistakes. We all fucked up, and we all suffered." She said plainly then, calmer to put it all in words. "Harry had no idea what he was doing half the time, I Obliviated my parents of all memories about me and wasn't able to bring them back, you left us," The Gryffindor turned to Ron, who flinched. "Luna's father gave us up, Dumbledore raised Harry to save everyone but himself, James and Lily trusted Wormtail,-" She stopped, chocking on emotions.

The room was silent again.

"I think we all-" Thomas started, but stopped as Luna shushed him. She was looking at the wall, and everyone did the same, curious.

 

_Repeat after me…._

_My demons don’t define me._

_Today I’ve written more on my skin than I have on the page, and none of it’s been romantic._

_I’m kind of pathetic, and I think you know it, but no matter the medium, we are all still poets._

_I use my pen to paint pictures, to make words dance across your face._

_But I’m too full of bitterness for your tired tongue to taste._

_Every day we waste, we waste away a little more,_

_I just hope there’s enough of me left for you to scrape off the floor._

 

"Oh, this is ridiculous." Ron rolled his eyes, angry and spiteful, but he was shushed by Harry, who was watching the words form and dissolve, enraptured.

 

_Repeat after me…._

_My demons don’t define me._

_I miss the pain that sets me free._

_Let me rest in your mouth, with your hungry tongue to comfort me._

_Stroke my skin with razor nails, and sing me to sleep with your teeth._

 

"It's one of us!" The redheaded boy insisted, already standing up. "We should check everyone's wands."

"Ginny likes poetry." Luna inputted, shrugging.

"I do, but I swear I have no idea how to do this." The other girl answered gently. "Also, as kind as those poems are, words on walls still make me queasy." She shuddered.

"What matters who's doing it? It's not harming anyone." Zabini spoke for the first time.

"McGonagall wants to know." Ronald insisted, walking to him. "Hold your wand up. Let's see what was the last spell you did."

 

_Repeat after me…._

_My demons don’t define me._

_There’s no shadow without light._

_The cavity of my ribcage is filled with hurricanes and manic butterflies._

_Every time I open my mouth I spill fragments of poetry that I wish I could whisper into your dreams as you sleep._

 

"Fuck off, Weasley. You're no Auror." Zabini spat back, but kept sitting down, fortunately. He knew what was at stake, and the Ministry needed no reason to be suspicious of any Slytherin, stupid as it was to generalize every single one of them and ignore their motives. To attack - or even defend himself - with magic a member of the Golden Trio and of Dumbledore’s Army would be as labelling as the dark mark itself at this point.

The shared notion only empowered Ron. "What, are you scared? Because I will be an Auror soon enough and I'll be onto you and your little row of-"

 

_Repeat after me…._

_My demons don’t define me._

_If I fall and there’s no one around to hear me,_

_do I make a sound?_

_It’s a hard thing to accept,_

_that you don’t need me around._

_And it’s hard to accept that everyone I’ve been in love with is better off without me. But it does make me glad to see it works out for someone. I’m one of those people that others go through to get to where they’re going._

_How do you keep growing in the aftermath of broken hearts?_

 

"We are supposed to be in peace, Ron," Neville stood up to face the other boy, who was still glaring at Zabini single-mindedly. "I know you are scared for your dad."

"What happened?" Finnigan asked Harry on a whisper.

"He stumbled into a dark artifact and they don't know what's the curse that is on him. He's at St. Mungus under a stasis spell until they figure it out." Harry spoke on low volume, but it was so damn quiet around them that everyone could obviously hear him.

"I'm not scared! I'm furious! They were on the wrong side, they were supposed to die, not-" He stopped, voice sounding wetter as he swallowed up more tears.

"We were all kids, Ron." Ginny spoke up again, lip trembling as she walked to her brother. One hand on his shoulder, she turned him to her, watching him softly. "We still are."

 

_Repeat after me…._

_My demons don’t define me._

_I’m a dark tunnel, but I promise there is a light at the end._

_My whole life is a trigger warning to myself._

_So if you’re easily hurt,_

_please don’t get too close._

_It’s hard to explain just how much hatred a heart can hold._

 

Silence made itself present again as both Weasleys and Longbottom sat back down, emotions high.

"Hermione is right. We all made mistakes." Neville announced softly. "But the biggest mistake would be to allow that fact to hunt us forever. We should be helping each other survive, not tearing each other apart. That was Voldemort’s job." Some flinched at the mention of his name, but the message was given. 

"He wanted to separate us, and we shouldn't let him." He continued, but before he could say anything else, McGonagall was entering the room to announce they were all dismissed.

In the midst of clattering chairs and footsteps of people leaving, Harry made himself stay behind. He and Luna were the last ones inside the room.

"Do you think Draco did it?" He asked her, capturing her attention from the small flowers growing around her fingers. "The Polyjuice." He explained, staring at his feet.

She hummed. "I think he's very good at potions." Luna smiled. "And he was very strong. His mother and father were falling apart, but he held them together. He held everything together, really." With a final nod, the girl skipped out of the room, leaving Harry to stare at the chair Malfoy was sitting on, and then at the empty wall.

 

_Repeat after me..._

_My demons don't define me._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem is this one: http://giraffevader.tumblr.com/post/123235250648/repeat-after-me-my-demons-dont-define-me. Not mine, all credits to the person who wrote and published it.


	6. De Lenige Liefde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boy wasn't too sure how, but he found himself stopping by the Forbidden Forest. Just by the spot he died. Snow never actually reached the Forest's ground, but the wind had swept some dried out, brown leaves over the earth where his body laid, lifeless, for a few minutes, or an eternity. He would probably never be sure.

_And suddenly he runs away and hides_

_behind a corner. What are you doing,_

_I ask. I am happiness, he calls,_

_you'll never find me._

 

December arrived with a sense of dread for Harry, Ron and Hermione. Mr. Weasley was still in the hospital, Mr. and Mrs. Granger were still unaware they had a daughter at all, and, well, Harry's parents were still dead. So was everyone else that could receive him with open arms, such as Sirius and Remus.

And yet. Yet, he couldn't help but find the fairy lights and glittery Christmas ornaments very pretty. It was always such a wonder, how beautiful things could give everyone a sense that it would be OK, how much comfort could be draw from them.

Ron decided to go to the Burrow anyway, and Hermione went with him. Harry refused. He would visit, of course, and give them his support, but he wasn't in a state of mind to be more than a burden to them and to himself, because, of course, he would feel guilty for not being more helpful.

It was for the best, of course, but that did not mean he didn't feel lonely. Incredibly free, of course, and relieved to spend some time by himself, acclimate his thoughts. He had always been the sort of introspective that needed time alone to replenish his energies, and boarding school, as it is, didn't allow him much time or space to do so. From the moment he woke up to the moment he went to sleep, he was accompanied. There was a time he was very thankful for it, and he still was; he just needed to balance it out a bit with his other needs.

 

_Sleeping is something I can only_

_imitate these days, he says._

_Love, too, I say. We are quiet._

 

On his second day with his friends gone, Harry found himself wandering the castle, as if he was searching for something. There were many things different, and many were still the same, and it all was a comforting and unsettling notion. Hogwarts was his home, despite the fact that he owned Grimmauld Place no. 12 now, and that he spent so much time with the Weasleys; and yet, unless he got himself a job on the school, he would have to leave and not come back.

He did want his life to move forward, of course. He was just afraid it wouldn't be as happy as the first phase of it was.

The boy wasn't too sure how, but he found himself stopping by the Forbidden Forest. Just by the spot he died. Snow never actually reached the Forest's ground, but the wind had swept some dried out, brown leaves over the earth where his body laid, lifeless, for a few minutes, or an eternity. He would probably never be sure.

A shaky breath from behind him told Harry he wasn't alone anymore. He just didn't expect to see the bond hair of a Malfoy staring at the same spot he was looking at.

"My mom told me." His voice rasped out, almost as if he didn't want to.

Harry nodded. "She saved me."

Malfoy chuckled humorlessly. "She saved all of us."

"She loves you very much." He said as an answer.

Draco watched him. "Not as much as your mom loved you, though." He took two steps forward, standing next to the Gryffindor. "She would have fled with me to France long before the Dark Lord came back to life if she did."

Harry just hummed. "If you say so."

They stood there, in silence, before Harry spoke again. "Arthur Weasley is in the hospital." He didn't look, but he knew Malfoy's expression was surprised. "Dark artifact. They have no idea if he'll survive."

Five minutes afterwards, he listened to footsteps and knew that Malfoy was gone. He was alone again.

 

_And later he mimics the sound_

_Of a car in which to_

_drive to the moon_.

 

He was reading those words on the wall of the bathroom where he almost killed Malfoy. Harry heard footsteps behind him again, and it said something about his mind that he knew it was Malfoy by the rhythm that his feet made against the floor alone.

"Thank you." Harry said, watching as Malfoy made his way to the sink he had been crying on some months ago.

"For what?" He asked, almost cynical, dismissive, as if he had no idea. He was definitely a better person without his father's influence and judgement over him, but he was still Malfoy through and through.

"Susan Bones told me. Her mom is in charge of Mr. Weasley's case." Harry told him and watched his tight control falter for a moment. It carved a smile on his lips. "Thank you."

"Sounds like you're assuming that I did it for your benefit, which I assure you, I did not." He turned to Harry, drying his hands.

Harry just kept on smiling.

"Thank you, Malfoy." He insisted.

The other boy just huffed and left, but Harry was sure he was smiling. He had no idea how he knew that, but he was sure.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit complicated to explain, but I'll add it up to the tags. The poem is called De Lenige Liefde, by Herman de Coninck, but the translation was "freely" made by a member of this Archive, who goes by the name of especiallythezefronposter in a work called "Listen." It became one of my favorite poems after reading that, and even if I tried to find the original one or another translation, I couldn't.


	7. L'Eternité

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry did not know any French, and that upset him to no end. That poem was following him, wall to wall, as if it knew he didn't understand it yet.
> 
> It was driving him insane.

_Elle est retrouvée._

_Quoi ? - L'Eternité._

_C'est la mer allée_

_Avec le soleil._

Harry did not know any French, and that upset him to no end. That poem was following him, wall to wall, as if it knew he didn't understand it yet.

It was driving him _insane_.

"Hermione," He asked, but she just shook her head, mouth twisted as if she was regretting never having learned French just for that reason.

Ron just shrugged, and there was that.

The words, however, went around him, calling up the attention of everyone around him. He looked at those faces directed to him, to the wall, searching for recognition, but everyone seemed just as bewildered as he was.

_Ame sentinelle,_

_Murmurons l'aveu_

_De la nuit si nulle_

_Et du jour en feu._

"Professor?" He asked McGonagall, who shook her head, as did Flitwick, Pomfrey, Slughorn, Trelawney, Pince. He even asked the ghosts, but it was for nothing.

"I know no French," Nearly Headless Nick said, just beside the Grey Lady, the Fat Friar and Myrtle, where he coached them on her bathroom. "But maybe the Bloody Baron knows something."

Defeated, he sighed, which made Hermione sigh in return. "Pity there's no internet connection here."

_Des humains suffrages,_

_Des communs élans_

_Là tu te dégages_

_Et voles selon._

He even grabbed a French book, but damn, the stuff was hard to get, and he would go insane if he didn't get a translation soon.

He decided to walk to the Slytherin table, then. Desperate times, desperate measures, and all of that.

His eyes fell on Malfoy, but the boy was obviously avoiding looking at him with all his might. Zabini it was, then.

"Please." He said, pointing to the wall behind them, which was showing him the same verses he almost knew by head. Why, instead of talking to snakes, Voldemort hadn't given him the power to speak French? Less impressive, all right, but way more useful.

_Puisque de vous seules,_

_Braises de satin,_

_Le Devoir s'exhale_

_Sans qu'on dise : enfin._

Blaise just shrugged. "I don't know French." He turned to the girl beside him. "Astoria?" She shook her blond head.

"Me and Daphne learned German."

"Pansy?" He asked the dark-haired girl, then. She tilted her head.

"I know a little. I think it means ' _It's found again, What? - Eternity. It's the sea gone-_ " The girl bit her lower lip. "I don't know what that means."

"Mister Malfoy." The newly hanged portrait of Severus Snape, hanged just behind the Slytherin table, caught their attention. Harry knew the first one was by Minerva's desk on her Headmistress table, right beside Dumbledore’s. Considering how much of Albus' lunacy the portrait carried, Harry understood Snape's wish to have a second frame hanged to where he could run when it got too much. Which was always, really.

Not to mention that it probably pleased Severus to no end to see the school back to what it was, free from the Carrow brothers.

Draco ducked his head, making Harry frown a bit. He knew the other boy was trying to maintain a low profile, but when did he refrain from showing off some of his talents around?

_Là pas d'espérance,_

_Nul orietur._

_Science avec patience,_

_Le supplice est sûr._

"Yes, Godfather?" Draco asked, looking behind him to the portrait, and his stiff posture said of how uncomfortable he was feeling right on that moment. Harry filed the _godfather_ information for later, because what the hell?, but his first instinct was to apologize and hurry to leave.

"I saw that you learned French." Severus scolded Malfoy.

"It's not necessary, really, Snap-"

"Hush, Potter. You have an opportunity to have your ignorance diminished; learn to take it."

Harry's jaw snapped shut underneath Pansy's and Blaise's snickers.

"And you two know no French, also, even though you are pureblooded Slytherins that claim to be of the traditional education. And yet, you act no better than Potter there." Snape continued, making them stop and Harry cower.

The man-portrait knew how to be scary even from the grave.

"Mister Malfoy," Snape continued. "Please, be kind enough to translate the poem to Mister Potter there, before he seeks the Bloody Baron from the dungeons and gets him to stumble upon Nearly Headless Nick again." He rolled his eyes. "We all know how that ended the last time."

Harry could still hear the armors clattering, and shuddered. Yes, best to avoid that.

_Elle est retrouvée._

_Quoi ? - L'Eternité._

_C'est la mer allée_

_Avec le soleil._

Draco had his shoulders to his ears, but he held his legs up to slide on the bench and face the scribbled wall.

 

" _It has been rediscovered. What? Eternity. It is the sea fled with the sun."_

_Sentinel soul,_

_We whisper confession_

_Of the empty night_

_And the fiery day._

_From human prayers,_

_From common spirits_

_You free yourself_

_And thus you fly._

_Since from you alone,_

_Satin embers,_

_Duty breathes_

_No one says: at last._

_No hope here,_

_No emergence._

_Knowledge with patience,_

_Torment is certain._

_It has been rediscovered._

_What? Eternity._

_It is the sea fled_

_with the sun._

When he finished, Harry blushed, because he noticed that he, himself, was taking a shuddering breath, unavoidable, considering he couldn't breathe during the translation, word by word coming from Malfoy's mouth slowly, surely, as if he knew their weight, the picture they shaped on Harry's head, how much it hurt and healed to listen to them.

The words vanished slowly, and his sore heart jumped, aching to have them back.

Harry was just then able to focus his eyes on Snape, who was watching expectantly, Pansy and Blaise, who seemed to understand at least a little; Malfoy, who, he suspected, held the very same expression that Harry himself did.

"Thanks." He whispered, unable to get his voice to form words. Malfoy nodded and, just then, as if a spell was broken, he was able to walk away. Facing his friends, however, was too much, so he ran to Hagrid's hut, and stayed there, silently letting his friend fill the silence with the slurping of some Irish coffee, until he felt whole again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> L'Eternité, Arthur Rimbaud. Original and translation from this website: https://www.talkinfrench.com/french-poems-english-translations/ .


	8. Sometimes With The One I Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The little blue notebook was a mystery.

_Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn’d love,_

_But now I think there is no unreturn’d love, the pay is certain one way or another_

_(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d,_

_Yet out of that I have written these songs)._

The little blue notebook was a mystery.

Neville had found it on a hallway, showed it to Luna, and now they were all gathered on the Gryffindor Tower, waiting for someone to say something.

"There is nothing in here to indicate the owner." Pavarti Patil said, flipping the pages, each of them filled with poems written in black ink and very careful calligraphy. It was obvious by the conservation of the notebook that it was old, but treasured, since it had no scratch, no scribbles, no scrawling, no mistakes corrected.

"It's expensive." Neville pointed out.

"But that doesn't help." Harry shrugged. "Many people are rich around here."

Hermione finally finished her magic scans and sighed, leaning against the chair she was sitting on. "Well. It's most certainly tied to the castle walls' with magic. My best guess is that this belongs to the person who started this poem-on-the-wall thing, and whatever the person writes in here, pops out to someone else, depending on their mood."

"It's quite a collection of poems." Luna smiled, grabbing the book to flip the pages as well. "A lot of Neruda." She directed her gaze and smile to Harry, who blushed.

"Whoever's the owner of this has a crush on Harry." Ron said, shrugging.

Patil laughed. "Half of Britain has. That's no plausible clue, Weasley."

 "Maybe we could try to get the magical signature?"

His girlfriend shook her head. "It would only be possible to identify the person if we checked every single student of the school individually, and I doubt McGonagall would allow that."

They sat in silence for a moment, looking at each other's faces, cogs turning in their heads.

"Hermione, pass me a quill." Harry asked, taking the notebook and opening on a clear page, intent clear on his head. His friends gathered close to see.

"What are you going to do, mate?" Ron asked then, eyes settled on his friend's awful, but understandable scrawl.

"Is that Neruda?" Ginny asked then, interested.

"There was a Neruda poem following me the other day, so I bought a book." He explained, finishing the lines. "And the book can direct the lines if the writer want to. Flitwick told me so."

"So you're writing to the owner." Hermione concluded with a smile. "That's clever."

"But mate," Neville hesitated. "Isn't that a bit... Romantic? You don't even know who that is."

"I don't care." Harry finished and turned to Hermione. "Can you track the magic from here?"

She nodded. "Just give me the Marauder's Map and I can do it."

Ron shot up as Ginny took the book from Harry, smiling as she read aloud.

 

_"Where were you then?_

_Who else was there?_

_Saying what?_

_Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly_

_when I am sad and feel you are far away?_

_The book fell that always closed at twilight_

_and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet._

_Always, always you recede through the evenings_

_toward the twilight erasing statues."_

Harry just smiled at her, and she kissed his forehead gently. "It's an invitation, if I ever saw one. But, Harry..." She cupped his face. "Are you ready to find out who it is?"

He just shrugged. "I have to be."

She nodded and settled as Ron set by Harry's side, giving the Map to Hermione. She weaved her hand strangely, muttering something under her breath, and a red arrow shot around the representation of Hogwarts, guiding them to-

 

"The dungeons?" Patil frowned. "The person who has a crush on Potter is a Slytherin?"

"Go figure." Neville shrugged. "Maybe a first or second year?"

They waited as the red arrow flew around and around, as if settling, and slowly, very slowly, making a figure appear.

"Mischief Managed!" Harry yelled and grabbed the Map roughly.

"Harry, what happened?" Hermione frowned at him, seeing him gather his things to leave. "Do you know who it is?"

He was tense as a bowstring, which made Ron frown deeper than his girlfriend. "Don't tell me it's-"

"I gotta go! See you at dinner." He said and scrambled his way out of the Tower, almost falling off the stairs.

"Is it who I think it is?" Hermione asked Ron, who sighed, passing an arm around her.

"Probably." He shrugged. "It was bound to happen, someday. I just wish I had prepared myself better for this."

"What are you guys talking about?" Neville demanded, brow arched. "Who is Harry's secret admirer?"

"You'll know soon enough." Luna stood up and grabbed Neville's hand with a smile. How she got things like that in the air, Ron would never know. "Now, let's go find Hanna. Ginny, you coming?" She turned and the redheaded girl smile.

"Right behind you."

Pavarti made herself scarce, leaving Ron free to caress his girlfriend's hair. "Are Luna and Ginny...?"

Hermione purred at the caress, humming. "Yes."

"And they're...?"

"Most definitely." She closed her eyes, relaxing.

Ron sighed again, closing his eyes and relaxing against her body warmth. What would be, would be, and all of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes with One I Love - Walt Whitman
> 
> Clenched Soul - Pablo Neruda


	9. Scheherazade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The cross represents the world's sins," An elderly woman explained to him as she saw his puzzled face. "Our sins. He carries them for us, and his death sets us free of past mistakes, as long as we ask for it with all our hearts."
> 
> He saw the woman kneel down in a small wooden bench, looking at him as if instructing him to follow. He did, out of respect, out of fear, out of hope. Then, as she taught him by example, he joined his own hands in front of his head and closed his eyes.

Harry ran until his breath was catching on his throat, not enough, never enough.

 

 

_Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake_

_and dress them in warm clothes again._

He felt like his throat was closing and he needed to run, needed to breathe, needed to-

 _Something_.

_How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running_

_until they forget that they are horses._

_It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,_

_it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,_

Of course, those love declarations were the result of a crush, not full-blown love, or even passion. It was impossible. They barely knew each other, they-

 _Your parents knew you for less time than he does and they were willing to die for you,_ his mind supplied unhelpfully. He knew it was different, and yet.

And yet, he knew it was perfectly possible to love someone in the distance. Like Snape did. Like Harry loved his own parents. Of course, it was different, it _should_ be different.

And yet.

And yet.

_how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days_

_were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple_

_to slice into pieces._

He was back at the Forbidden Forest.

 _Draco Malfoy_.

From the very beginning their lives had been somewhat entwined. There was no escaping it - he knew because he tried. The other boy got too far deep inside his skin and there was no therapy session to wipe him clean, threads of his influence wrapped as vines around his hands, his arms, his ribcage. He gave too much and there was no getting it back.

Realizing how much power he had over another person, for someone who used to _hate_ his guts to fall in love with him, meant more than what any fangirl could do. Harry never impressed Draco; he was never biased by his accomplishments or fame. If anything, all of that earned him the scorn of the blond boy.

Scorn that apparently turned into something else, shaped around whatever it was that bonded them, forcing them together, forcing them apart. Forces beyond his control.

Harry was hyperventilating.

_Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means_

_we’re inconsolable._

_Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us._

Hagrid found him passed out by the outskirts of the lake, but Harry didn't even remember how he got there. After a night in the infirmary and much fussing and frowning faces from Madam Pomfrey, he was dismissed.

On the way back, those words followed him, immovable, unchangeable. They were on Draco's little blue notebook, as was the boy's heart, bleeding out for everyone to see, with unforeseeable apologies, cries for help and so much _love_ that it couldn't possibly fit inside just one person. Of course he had a cold exterior. Of course he tried to hide how much of an open wound he was.

Harry absorbed every small line of the poem, committing it to memory, right before he fell to his knees, chest heaving without his consent.

Then eighteen years’ worth of tears poured out of him.

_These, our bodies, possessed by light._

_Tell me we’ll never get used to it._

 

 

***

 

Draco had known it was over on the moment he could not find the notebook.

He learned that spell out of necessity, to send his father and mother messages throughout the mansion while the Dark Lord lived there. It turned out to be a way to express himself without the risks that it inherently implied, a way to say sorry to the world for being so naïve and afraid, enough to follow his father after a madman until there was no turning back for him without bringing death upon his family.

 

 

_I long to talk with some old lover's ghost,_

_Who died before the god of love was born._

_I cannot think that he, who then lov'd most,_

_Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn._

_But since this god produc'd a destiny,_

_And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be,_

_I must love her, that loves not me._

 

And while Harry Potter was a beacon of the Light side to the wizarding world, he was also a boy who had no other option than to kill someone, who had been thrown into life threatening situations and heart-breaking grief since he was eleven years old. He was a magnet, attracting Draco's eyes since they were but children. First he thought it was out of jealousy, scorned the Gryffindor for his attention seeking tendencies.

But no, it wasn't that. Draco watched with horror as his life was deformed and degraded around murdering the other boy, a boy he once offered his hand to, all the while every wanking fantasy he had morphed from breasts and soft curves to flat hardness and piercing green eyes.

It was as if he was torn in two, two sides of a whole ripped violently from the other. He had cried his eyes out until there was nothing left of him to call anyone a Mudblood anymore. Until he did not recognize himself in the mirror, the lanky boy with dark shadows underneath his eyes and the Malfoy signet on his finger. What had once been a sign of pride to him now was only wore by him so he would never forget; never repeat his mistakes.

 

 

_Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much,_

_Nor he in his young godhead practis'd it._

_But when an even flame two hearts did touch,_

_His office was indulgently to fit_

_Actives to passives. Correspondency_

_Only his subject was; it cannot be_

_Love, till I love her, that loves me._

Sometimes, every beat of his heart hurts, aching and burning from his core to his limbs until his knees failed him and his hands were physically sore in a way he wasn't sure heartache could cause. Some days, like that one, when everything around him seemed to be singing under the beaming sunlight outside, he wondered if that would actually go away someday.

And there was him, Harry Potter, looking like someone who had been dragged to a war against his will and yet not only had won it, but also got over everything that it entailed. So bloody strong and positive, even when he had bad moments, they were only fleeting, as if shadows couldn't touch him, cold couldn't reach it. He wasn't only Avada Kedavra-proof, he was also pure to a fault, and for all he chastised himself for it, Draco longed for just a glimpse, some shards of that sun-like strength to shine upon him.

 

 

_But every modern god will now extend_

_His vast prerogative as far as Jove._

_To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,_

_All is the purlieu of the god of love._

_O! were we waken'd by this tyranny_

_To ungod this child again, it could not be_

_I should love her, who loves not me._

 

For all they talked that year, for all they spent silent, awkward, heartfelt moments together, he could see in every corner, on the way he had to learn how to be quicker at casting _protego_ and wear protecting charms around him all the time, that his mistakes had not been forgiven or forgotten. They loomed over him as the cross he saw on a man's back at summer, when he got curious and followed a Muggle procession to a temple - _church_ , he learned.

"The cross represents the world's sins," An elderly woman explained to him as she saw his puzzled face. "Our sins. He carries them for us, and his death sets us free of past mistakes, as long as we ask for it with all our hearts."

He just nodded, speechless. Penance and forgiveness. Redemption of all sins. While Harry Potter had been the Jesus of the Wizarding World, at least in Britain, Draco was still carrying his cross around painfully. The difference was that half of those were his own mistakes; the other half, his parents'.

He saw the woman kneel down in a small wooden bench, looking at him as if instructing him to follow. He did, out of respect, out of fear, out of _hope_. Then, as she taught him by example, he joined his own hands in front of his head and closed his eyes.

Ever since then, he had been praying for the Muggle God to save him - from himself, from his past, from the bloodshed and hatred. He kneeled down beside his bed, underneath his colleague’s weird looks, and prayed silently for everything he could not ask of Harry Potter: love, forgiveness, acceptance, redemption.

The missing of the blue notebook, however, made him fall to his knees and ask for something else entirely as soon as the words formed next to him by the dungeons. That was not one of his poems; he knew them all by heart. It was someone else calling for him.

 _"Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away?"_ It had said, and he yearned to answer it all, yearned to let everything that was bubbling inside of him to spill out and drown the whole castle, just to see if it was easier to deal. _I was here_ , Draco cried inside his own mind, trapped, eyes closed and palms together. _I have always been here_.

 

 

_Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I,_

_As though I felt the worst that love could do?_

_Love might make me leave loving, or might try_

_A deeper plague, to make her love me too;_

_Which, since she loves before, I'am loth to see._

_Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,_

_If she whom I love, should love me._

That, of course, was how Hermione Granger found him, kneeling in front of him with a look that rivalled the statue of the Virgin Mary from that church, kindness and unending benignity that he would never grasp entirely.

"Come on," Her hands held his forearms and pulled him up, pulled him out of himself. _Saved_ _him_.

"I'm sorry." His voice rasped out and she froze for a moment, just before blazing a smile to his direction.

"You're way less mysterious than you think you are, Malfoy." She said with laughter in her voice and pulled him by the hand. "Come." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scheherazade - Richard Siken (I have two lines of this tattoed to my arm. I like it that much.)
> 
> Love's Deity - John Donne


	10. In The Hands Of God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dog. A dragon. A bear. He wondered if his Patronus would change from his dead father's stag someday. He wondered what would his animagus turn out to be, if he decided to try it.
> 
> He wondered what would be Draco's.

_Baby I'll be your soldier_

_Gladly I'll do your bidding_

_For just a taste of what you're holding_

_For just a taste you could own me_

The skyline had a purple bruise in the middle of the yellow tinge where the sun had set down. The wind was peaceful, slightly chilly, making the plane surface of the water on the late ripple and fold into itself, the water shivering with the cold just like Harry. Winter was saying goodbye, gracefully yielding its space to the warmth of summer, which was still bowing down in respect to its predecessor.

It was strange to think that the war had taken Hogwarts as its tomb. Destiny chose to begin and end in the castle, and now children ran and laughed around the same spots where bodies of people he loved had been vulgarly splayed dead. It disgusted him, the thought that human lives were, to some, expendable, that the sanctity of it wasn't something everyone could see.

He also wondered if he should feel offended by the lack of knowledge of the younger ones, but quickly answered a sounding _no_ inside his own head. No, he shouldn't. Remus, Tonks, Fred, Sirius, Snape, Dumbledore, his mother and father; everyone had sacrificed their lives so the world could go on just like that, bright and pulsing vivacity. They died, and so did Harry, in order for life to go on untainted.

They would be proud.

_Save your sermons for someone that’s afraid to love_

_I'll be right here lying in the hands of God_

He wondered what would his father, or Sirius, have said of the situation he was in. He could imagine his mother, just like Hermione, knowing everything he felt and thought way before the awareness caught up to him. She would hug him with a smug, but kind smile, and roll her eyes at whatever her husband would say.

Would it have been a problem for them to know that he didn't exclusively liked girls? Aunt Petunia often used offensive expressions and phish tones to speak of anything that didn't fit in her world, but he couldn't see the people that walked with him to the end reacting that way.

Then again, he never actually met them, had he?

_Here it comes dive right into me_

_Now the floor is the ceiling_

_If you never flew why would you_

_Cut the wings off a butterfly?_

The stars showered on the sky, small white diamonds against the navy velvet of the sky. Even with the proximity of Hogsmeade's lights, Harry was sure he could see more stars in Hogwarts than he was ever able to in Privet Drive, or even in the whole Surrey shire. It was easy to spot Sirius there, bright and strong, shining light in its firm place on Canis Major next to Mirzam. He could also identify, thanks to his Astronomy classes, all of the major fifteen stars that composed the Draco constellation next to Ursa Minor, always directing eyes to the north.

A dog. A dragon. A bear. He wondered if his Patronus would change from his dead father's stag someday. He wondered what would his animagus turn out to be, if he decided to try it.

He wondered what would be Draco's.

_Save your sermons for someone that’s afraid to love_

_If you knew what I feel then you couldn’t be so sure_

_I'll be right here lying in the hands of God_

The grass rustled behind him and Harry tuned to face the source of his state of mind, of his walking on air. Harry expected his heart to beat wildly, to feel like falling; but nothing came. His peace remained undisturbed, if only now accompanied by a sharp sense of the new, stinging comfort settling on his chest warmly.

The other boy said nothing: just sat down beside him, their shoulders touching as they stared together at the same direction.

Harry was the one to break the silent pact. "How's your mother?" He asked. And regretted it instantly, of course.

_If you feel angels in your hair_

_Teardrops of joy run down your face_

_You will rise_

 Draco snorted. "Is that how you want to start this conversation?" His brow arched elegantly, a feature Harry never could mimic, no matter how much he tried. "Really?"

Harry just shrugged. "I was just wondering."

"She's fine, Potter." He sounded amused. "Why do you ask?"

The Gryffindor shrugged again. "I was thinking of what my mother would say about all of this."

Silence stretched between them, and Harry was reminded that not everyone remembered that he was an orphan. For him it was a fact of life, like the sky being blue; a never-ending ache inside his ribcage that would never fade.

"My mother is fine." Draco answered, lips pursed. "She speaks about you a lot."

"Yeah?" Harry couldn't hide his surprise. "How so?"

The blond boy shrugged. "I guess you have that effect on mothers. Since yours isn't around anymore, every middle-aged woman that comes within a hundred feet radius of you wants to fill that role, at least temporarily."

Harry laughed, very pleased when he caught the corners of the Slytherin's lips twisting up. "And what do you think she'd say about this?"

"About what?" Harry couldn't arch an eyebrow, but his expression obviously conveyed what he wanted to. Draco snorted. "Alright, well. Lately she's been very adamant that I have laid passive underneath my father's thumb for too long, and that I should do whatever the hell I want with my life from now on."

He couldn't supress the laughter. "It's difficult to imagine your mother saying things like _hell_."

The other boy shrugged, but he was smiling too. "I guaranteed she did. She's very firm about taking the reins of the family after my father's mistakes." He turned his head to face the sky. "I think the wizarding world is not ready for the Malfoy family having a matriarch instead of a patriarch."

"They'll have to deal." Harry said, feeling strangely proud of that mild woman, so unassuming and tempered right until something threatened her family. A woman that now, apparently, was defying everything she learned and two of the people she loved the most to have a say in their safety and happiness.

_Fill me up now drain me_

_Skin begins to grow back slowly_

_Faster until I’m choking_

_I really should call my mother_

"Would you like to ask?" Draco's voice broke the silence again, startling Harry.

"What?"

"Would you like to ask?" To Harry's clueless expression, he added. "Your mother."

Harry mused about it for a moment. "I know what I'm going to do regardless." He answered. "I think I've known since the beginning. But yes, I'd like to ask." The boy smiled. "I think it would be fun. And reassuring."

Draco nodded, understanding. "There are things only a mother can make us feel." He agreed. "Or the figure of a mother. I guess in your case that would be Mrs. Weasley." There was no scorn or judgement in his voice.

Harry just smiled. "Despite the ache of losing my parents, I think I've been very lucky on that department. I had a lot of mother and father figures to help me along the way."

"Don't let my mother hear that."

The warning made them both laugh.

A cold weight on his hands made Harry look down, seeing something he thought he'd never see again. He looked at Draco searchingly.

"I found it in the forest the other day." Grey eyes considered the resurrection stone carefully. "I'm assuming you know how it works."

Harry twirled the ring around in his hand. "What should I do with this?"

Draco just shrugged. "Your father had the invisibility cloak, and you ended up stumbling upon the elderly wand and this." He watched the ring. "I think they're meant to be yours."

"Really?"

"You're the only one who wouldn't abuse the power."

_I am in love with nothing else_

_Teardrops of joy run off my face_

"Do you think I should?" He turned to Draco. "Ask my mother."

Draco smiled. "Only one way to find out."

Harry took a deep breath and put the ring on.

 _"A Malfoy, son? Really? You couldn't choose a guy that's not so... blond?"_ James' voice was in his head immediately.

 _"James!"_ His mother hit him on the chest. _"He's going to think we don't support it!"_

 _"Do we?"_ Sirius poke his head over James' shoulder. _"I mean, it's a_ Malfoy _. You do remember his father, don't you?"_

She roller her eyes. _"Harry, sweetie, don't worry. We've been watching you - when it's appropriate to, stop scowling, Sirius - and we_ all _think you should do whatever you want._ _Whatever makes you happy."_ She smiled.

Harry watched them with a smile. "Even if it's a Malfoy?" He asked and Draco watched him with an inquisitive expression.

_I will rise for someone that's afraid to love_

_If you knew what I feel then you couldn’t be so sure_

" _Whoever it is, honey, we support you."_ She assured him. _"I'm not sure how I ended up with a boy who bullied my best friend when we were kids, but here you are, the proof that anyone that has Evans blood is an idiot in the relationship area."_

"What is she saying?" Draco asked, poking Harry's arm.

Harry smiled.

_I'll be right here lying in the hands of God_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a song I got to know recently. It's called Lying In The Hands Of God, by Dave Matthews Band.


	11. The Aftermark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of summer didn't care about what they had lived. The beginning of autumn didn't care that they had survived. Time never did.   
> From first years to seventh, smiles and laughter spread, starting like droplets of water rippling through a peaceful surface, from the most resilient, or from those who the war didn't reach.   
> Now, however, Harry joined them in sparkling chuckles.

_Love at the lips was touch_

_As sweet as I could bear;_

_And once that seemed too much;_

_I lived on air_

_Now no joy but lacks salt,_

_That is not dashed with pain_

_And weariness and fault;_

_I crave the stain_

_Of tears, the aftermark_

_Of almost too much love,_

_The sweet of bitter bark_

_And burning clove._

_When stiff and sore and scarred_

_I take away my hand_

_From leaning on it hard_

_In grass and sand,_

_The hurt is not enough:_

_I long for weight and strength_

_To feel the earth as rough_

To all my length.

 

The poem followed Harry and he smiled, walking slowly towards the border of the lake. The warm breeze unhurriedly moved the fluffy white clouds from east to west, once more uncovering the white skies to show the warm blue that only September could afford to have, especially on that part of Scotland. Sun rays illuminated Hogwarts almost harshly, violently forcing the happy light through the eyes of the students.

The end of summer didn't care about what they had lived. The beginning of autumn didn't care that they had survived. Time never did.

From first years to seventh, smiles and laughter spread, starting like droplets of water rippling through a peaceful surface, from the most resilient, or from those who the war didn't reach.

Now, however, Harry joined them in sparkling chuckles.

"Harry, your _boyfriend_ is throwing water at me!" Ron complained as Draco, with his pants pulled up to his knees, kicked water all over the redhead, who, despite getting wetter by the minute, didn't seem too keen on moving from the stone he was sitting beside Hermione.

"I know you're a Muggle lover, Weasley, but you're still a wizard, and pureblooded at that. Frankly." Draco huffed hauntingly, smiling after that. That smile said he was up to no good, so Harry decided to stay away from him. "Won't you come and kiss me, darling?"

"I'd like to keep myself dry, thank you." He answered, earning a pout. His eyes flickered, however, and Harry didn't have the time to dodge the magnanimous _push_ that Luna Lovegood offered his back, throwing him directly into the fresh water.

When Harry emerged, they were all laughing at his wet state. "Is that how you defeated the Dark- _Vol--_ Thomas Riddle, love? Honestly, Granger, tell us the truth. It _was_ you waving your wand behind him, wasn't you?'

The girl giggled. "No, that was all Harry. I just saved his ass at least two dozen times before that and told him how to do it." She shrugged as her boyfriend's arm snaked around her shoulders, the redhead's lips smooching her cheek. "Ew, Ronald!"

"Eww, straight sex." Draco made a disgusted face. "Potter, please, come here and wipe that image off of my mind."

Ron made a gagging sound as Harry enveloped Draco in a hug, kissing him.

"Are the poems going to stop?" He asked the blond, nuzzling his nose.

Draco hummed. "What for? People seem to like them and I've been awfully... _Inspired_ , lately."

" _I love you like this because I don't know any other way to love, except in this form in which I am not nor are you-_ " He recited as his lips traced the other boy's jaw fondly. "- _so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,_ " He held Draco's hand over his own chest to let him feel his heart, calm and exhilarated at the same time. _"-so close that your eyes close with my dreams._ " The last words were a whisper and they lips met, blessed by the fairy tale day.

"Oh Merlin, he's whispering Neruda." Ron rolled his eyes behind them. "We're all doomed."

Draco just laughed, the picture of joy. "We better be, Weasley." Grey melted into green. "We better be."

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems:   
> To Earthward - Robert Frost
> 
> One Hudred Love Sonnets (XVII) - Pablo Neruda
> 
> That's it. I hope you enjoyed it.   
> See you all next time.


End file.
